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Write file to Azure file storage

  • 4 August 2021
  • 7 replies
  • 280 views

Userlevel 5
Badge +12

Hi all,

I currently have the following set-up, which is just not working great. It's slow, complex, and it needs a kick every day to get going. 

The current set-up. 

  • Task on 'origin’-table does an insert on the rpt_queue (table). 
  • Thinkwise reporting service picks this up, generates the PDF and places this in an output-folder 
    • NOTE: the .rdl file is not withing SF, but from a repo (so an outside party can create the rdl files!)
  • Our home-made Service polls the output-folder. If a file is found, it is uploaded to our Azure File storage. 
  • It's final location is given back to the rpt_queue and 'origin’ table, so the file_previewer can display the file. 

Upside = it's what I need

Downside = it's slow and never works well

 

What I now want to try is this; 

  • Create the PDF through a task (with the .rdl from the repo) 
  • Save the directly to Azure file storage 
  • Get the final uri from the file and show in the File Previewer

And - this all must be faster than ..say… 10 seconds max? 

 

First of all, i'm not sure if this is even possible. Can anyone share thoughts on this? And Secondly, if so, how can this be done the best/easiest? 

Alex

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Best answer by Mark Jongeling 19 January 2022, 13:30

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7 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +23

Hi,

From the 2022.1, it will be possible to use the Write file connector to write files to a file storage location. This will be explained in an upcoming blog or in the Release notes. 

Does that solve the question?

Userlevel 5
Badge +12

Just a check;

Should the web gui be able to write directly to the server’s disk? 

I can’t find the reason it’s failing, and can’t spend too much time on it. 

if it can’t be done, I quit. But if it should be possible.. I might look into it more…

 

Userlevel 5
Badge +12

No, local testing in windows gui works fine. It selects the save-path from my Settings and nicely leaves on it my desktop… 

Report action is set to: Export to PDF. 

So, expecting the same behavior, I thought it would save on the server disk. But no… 

Edit; tried a UNC path with server name in it and such… no dice. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +23

in the meantime, I have created a Task, that starts a process flow. In that flow I "Print Report” with a file path to the servers disk (existing path of course). My expectation was, that the file would be directly writting to the disk. But instead, it opens the file in my pdf previewer. 

I guess this means that the file can't be saved. (?) 


What would be the next step in debugging this, so the file will be written to the server disk?

Perhaps in Software Factory > Reports, the Report action of the report is set to print preview?

Userlevel 5
Badge +12

in the meantime, I have created a Task, that starts a process flow. In that flow I "Print Report” with a file path to the servers disk (existing path of course). My expectation was, that the file would be directly writting to the disk. But instead, it opens the file in my pdf previewer. 

I guess this means that the file can't be saved. (?) 


What would be the next step in debugging this, so the file will be written to the server disk?

Userlevel 5
Badge +12

Ok, I’ll try to improve on the current situation. However, if there is any more on info how to write the file to azure with the file connector, that would be very much appreciated. 

 

Userlevel 6
Badge +16

Currently it's not possible to generate a report and immediately upload this to Azure. You could achieve this using a process flow first creating the report save it to a location and then upload it to azure using a file connector. The Azure path could then be saved in a process variable to update the corresponding row. We have a couple of backlog items that would make this a lot easier to accomplish in a future release. Based on the fact that it currently is not easy to accomplish we would advise you to currently keep the current structure in tact and look into if you can improve on that. 

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